BSG Midterm Exam 1 (Answered) Verified Solution 100%

BSG Midterm Exam 1 (Answered) Verified Solution 100% A company's strategy represents managerial commitment to undertake one set of actions rather than another in an effort to compete successfully and achieve good performance outcomes. There are many routes to competitive advantage, but they all involve providing buyers with what they perceive as superior value compared to the offerings of rival sellers. Which one of the following statements about whether a company's strategy can be considered ethical is true? just keeping a company's strategic actions within the bounds of what is legal does not mean the strategy is ethical. Among all the things managers do, nothing affects a company's ultimate success or failure more fundamentally than how well its management team charts the company's direction, develops competitively effective strategic moves and business approaches, and pursues what needs to be done internally to produce good day-in/day-out strategy execution and operating excellence. The difference between a company's strategy and a company's business model is that its strategy is defined by the specific market positioning, competitive moves, and business approaches management employs to try to produce good business results while its business model relates to management's blueprint for delivering a valuable product or service to customers in a manner that will generate revenue sufficient to cover costs and yield an attractive profit. Which of the following is NOT one of the reasons that a company's strategy evolves over time? the need on the part of company managers to make regular strategy adjustments so as to keep rivals off balance and always guessing about what moves it will make next. A company achieves competitive advantage when it has some type of edge over rivals in attracting buyers and coping with competitive forces. Which one of the following does NOT account for why a company's strategy evolves over time, as shown in Figure 1.2 and explained in the accompanying text discussion? managerial preferences for keeping the life-cycle of any given strategy short. In choosing among strategy alternatives, company managers are well-advised to embrace strategic actions that can pass the test of moral scrutiny -- it is not enough to just stay within the bounds of what is legal and is in compliance with prevailing government regulations. A company's strategy evolves from one version to the next as managers abandon obsolete or ineffective strategy elements, settle upon a set of proactive strategy elements, and then -- as new circumstances unfold -- make adaptive strategic adjustments, which gives rise to reactive strategy elements. According to Figure 1.1, which of the following is NOT something to look for in identifying a company's strategy? actions to strengthen the company's competitive position by hiring one or more new top executives or laying off a portion of its work force or paying down its long-term debt. The two crucial elements of a company's business model are its profit proposition or "profit formula" and its customer value proposition. Which one of the following questions can be used to distinguish a winning strategy from a mediocre or losing strategy? how well does the strategy fit the company's situation? A company's business model sets forth how its strategy and operating approaches will create value for customers while at the same time generating revenues sufficient to cover costs and realize a profit. A company's strategy is most accurately defined as management's commitment to pursue a particular set of actions in attracting and pleasing customers, competing successfully, capitalizing on opportunities to grow the business, responding to changing market conditions, conducting operations, and achieving the targeted financial and market performance. A company's strategic plan lays out its future direction, business purposes, performance targets, and strategy -- in other words, a strategic vision + mission + a set of objectives + a strategy = a strategic plan. Which one of the following is NOT one of the external or internal considerations in deciding on a company's future direction? what actions should the company take to become a global leader and the first choice of customers in every market the company competes in? Which of the following are part of the strategy-making, strategy-executing process shown in Figure 2.1? setting objectives and using them as yardsticks for measuring the company's performance and tracking its progress in achieving the intended strategic vision and mission. Setting and achieving strategic objectives is critically important because a stronger market standing with buyers and improved competitive strength to combat rivals' vitality -- especially when these result in a bigger competitive advantage -- is what enables and empowers a company to improve its financial performance in upcoming periods. A company's values relate to such things as fair treatment, honor and integrity, ethical behavior, innovativeness, teamwork, accountability, a passion for top-notch quality or superior customer service, social responsibility, and community citizenship. A company with strategic intent is one that concentrates the full force of its resources and competitive actions on achieving an ambitious strategic outcome. Which of the following statements about managing the task of implementing and executing strategy is false? management's handling of the strategy implementation and execution process can be considered successful if the company's net profits are higher after the process is completed than they were before the process began. In a single-business company, the strategy-making hierarchy (as shown in Figure 2-2) consists of business strategy, functional area strategies, and operating strategies. Which one of the following approaches to objective-setting should definitely be avoided? setting unspecific targets like maximize profits, reduce costs, become more efficient, or increase revenues. Which one of the following is NOT among the chief duties/responsibilities of a company's board of directors insofar as the strategy-making, strategy-executing process is concerned? supervising enforcement of high ethical standards and stepping in to take the lead role in promptly revising and improving the company's strategy whenever the company's financial performance is unsatisfactory. A company's mission statement typically addresses which of the following questions? "who are we, what do we do, and why are we here?" The task of effectively communicating the strategic vision to organization members is made easier by capturing the essence of the vision in an easily remembered phrase or catchy slogan and then using the phrase/slogan repeatedly as a reminder of "where we are going and why." Masterful strategies come from doing things differently from competitors where it counts -- out-innovating them, being more efficient, being more imaginative, adapting faster -- rather than running with the herd. Which one of the following statements about the characteristics of well-stated objectives is false? well-stated objectives should contain sufficient wiggle room to allow for the occurrence of unexpected circumstances that block achievement of the objective. A company's strategic vision concerns a company's long-term direction and what product-customer-market-business mix seems optimal for the road ahead. Corporate strategy for a diversified or multi-business enterprise concerns strategy initiatives to establish business positions in different industries, whether to hold or divest existing businesses, strategic actions to boost the combined performance of the set of businesses the company has diversified into, and how to capture cross-business synergies and turn them into a competitive advantage. A company that pursues and achieves strategic objectives is frequently better able to improve its future financial performance (because of the stronger market standing and greater ability to compete successfully against rivals that result from setting and achieving strategic objectives.) Which of the following are characteristics of an effectively-worded strategic vision statement?